NM NM - Patty Pritz, 14, & Mattie Restine, 13, Carlsbad, 11 Aug 1961 - #1

[Sunshine 1950]

Clover1, I hope I haven't confused you even more. Carl Hawkins was the sheriff, and he did work in West's Funeral Home, but not at the same time. He was in the funeral home business before going into law enforcement. Mr. West was Hawkin's step-father.

Heck, I had this wrong too because I also thought that the funeral home was still owned by relatives of the sheriff at the time the girls were murdered.

Justthinkin I'm not sure that the West Family didn't own the funeral home at the time the girls were killed. In Sept. 2003, when my father had Mattie's body exhumed...Thomas Dresser, who supposedly owned the funeral home at the time the girls were killed, asked my father if he could attend the exhumation...we met him at the West Funeral Home the day before the exhumation. He told us he owned the funeral home when the girls were killed. I hope that clears this up for all of you.

 

[Sunshine 1950]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING WEBSLEUTHERS!
As I was thinking of my families blessings today I couldn't help but think of how all of you have truely been a blessing to Mattie and Patty's families. Thank you for working so many hours on the case. I was beginning to feel like I had reached the end of a long unsuccessful journey when all of you jumped in to help me amd my family with the case. May God Bless each and every one of you.

 

[justthinkin]

SS1950, thank you. I just wish we could come up with a more definitive answer regarding who killed Mattie and Patti.

 

[Legacy]

I (along with countless others) received an email from New Mexico Senator Tom Udall yesterday. Since he asked if there was anything he could do to help me, I couldn't resist the opportunity to "reply" to ask him for help for Sunshine in obtaining further DNA testing and assistance with the reinvestigation of this case. I told his office that I felt like this case would at some point in the future gain national recognition and invited them on this forum.

You never know who might be in a position to help...

 

[Sunshine 1950]

I (along with countless others) received an email from New Mexico Senator Tom Udall yesterday. Since he asked if there was anything he could do to help me, I couldn't resist the opportunity to "reply" to ask him for help for Sunshine in obtaining further DNA testing and assistance with the reinvestigation of this case. I told his office that I felt like this case would at some point in the future gain national recognition and invited them on this forum.

You never know who might be in a position to help...

Thank You Legacy for doing this...I appreciate all that you have done for this case. I haven't heard anything from the letter I sent...I haven't given up yet. But sure wish something would happen...
I have a few more individuals I would like to run by you soon.
Again Thanks.

 

[Sunshine 1950]

Well folks I received a reply from my letter to the New Mexico Governor... Bill Richardson. Guess what? He has no jurisdiction in his own state. I guess I expected to much from this man. What is he? A big joke!

 

[Sunshine 1950]

SS1950, thank you. I just wish we could come up with a more definitive answer regarding who killed Mattie and Patti.

Justthinkin you have helped me a great deal. Please know that I appreciate all that you have done for this case. You have a wealth of information to share with me...and that helps more than you will ever know!

 

[justthinkin]

I want to talk about autopsies, and the doctor who performed them for ECSO in the 1950s and 60s. Was there more than one doctor? Did a physician have to have any separate training mandated by the state govt. to perform autopsies?

Here's what I'm getting at. I'm wondering how the girls' autopsies compare with those performed on the two women and man who were killed in, I believe, 1957.

Did the same doctor perform all 5 autopsies? Who owned the West Funeral Home in 1957?

If the sheriff was present at the girls' autopsies, does anyone see a conflict of interest? Could the sheriff have been directing the physician in performing the autopsies?

Where are the morgue photos?

 

[Sunshine 1950]

I want to talk about autopsies, and the doctor who performed them for ECSO in the 1950s and 60s. Was there more than one doctor? Did a physician have to have any separate training mandated by the state govt. to perform autopsies?

Here's what I'm getting at. I'm wondering how the girls' autopsies compare with those performed on the two women and man who were killed in, I believe, 1957.

Did the same doctor perform all 5 autopsies? Who owned the West Funeral Home in 1957?

If the sheriff was present at the girls' autopsies, does anyone see a conflict of interest? Could the sheriff have been directing the physician in performing the autopsies?

Where are the morgue photos?

I don't know anything that would help out here. I was to young to know any of this. But when the girls were killed a man by the name Ray Anaya was working at the funeral home. He drove the vehicle that went out to pick the girls up...and he became a sheriff later on in his lifetime.

Sheriff's of Eddy County...New MExico

Jack Rupe 1-1-1959---8-1-1961
Carl Hawkins 1961-1966....then on to the Chief of Police...Carlsbad
Ramon "Ray" Anaya 1-1965----12-1970 * worked at West Funeral Home
and the mines before becoming
sheriff of Eddy County.
Thomas Granger 1-1-1971---12-31-1974
1-1-1979---12-31-1980
Leroy Payne 1-1-1975---12-31-1978
Jack Childress 1984-1984
1989-1996
John F. Lewis 1985-1988
Chunky Click 1997-2000
Kent Waller 2001-2008
Ernie Mendoza 2009---present sheriff

Ray Anaya was a helper at the West Funeral Home when the girls were killed. Maybe he could share what he knows.

The autopsy reports only have Dr. J. F. Haynes, M.D. on them. His signature is the only one on the reports.

Hopefully someone else can come on here and answer these questions.

 

[Pecos45]

JT - I don't know about the doctor's qualifications then or now but I suspect they weren't much back then.

What it seems you are really suggesting is the sheriff is a serial killer. I find this notion exceeds my imagination and actually there were two separate sheriffs involved during this time frame.

Autopsy photos? I doubt anyone here would know what they were looking at if they had them. Perhaps a color, narrated film of the process in the right medical hands might be of some value. But what are we going to do about a mistake if discovered?

It just seems to me we keep looking for mistakes made by people long sense dead and gone. Not much we can do to them is there. And there is no doubt in anyone's mind that mistakes galore were made. So we are sort of proving the obvious.

I've just never been much of a fan of conspiracy theories. I really see this as a pretty simple crime by a person devoid of human emotions. He has escaped mans justice all these years simply because he didn't leave many clues at the scene and the crime scene was treated like a circus. And maybe worst of all I can't see that there was ever any aggressive/effective attempt to solve the case. ECSO at the time of the murders apparently still had the crime fighting effectiveness as when Jesse James was shot. This case was amateur night from the start.:banghead:

 

[justthinkin]

JT - I don't know about the doctor's qualifications then or now but I suspect they weren't much back then.

What it seems you are really suggesting is the sheriff is a serial killer. I find this notion exceeds my imagination and actually there were two separate sheriffs involved during this time frame.

Autopsy photos? I doubt anyone here would know what they were looking at if they had them. Perhaps a color, narrated film of the process in the right medical hands might be of some value. But what are we going to do about a mistake if discovered?

It just seems to me we keep looking for mistakes made by people long sense dead and gone. Not much we can do to them is there. And there is no doubt in anyone's mind that mistakes galore were made. So we are sort of proving the obvious.

I've just never been much of a fan of conspiracy theories. I really see this as a pretty simple crime by a person devoid of human emotions. He has escaped mans justice all these years simply because he didn't leave many clues at the scene and the crime scene was treated like a circus. And maybe worst of all I can't see that there was ever any aggressive/effective attempt to solve the case. ECSO at the time of the murders apparently still had the crime fighting effectiveness as when Jesse James was shot. This case was amateur night from the start.:banghead:

I am suggesting no such thing. I am only suggesting a conflict of interest. I am well aware that Hawkins wasn't even sworn in before Mattie and Patty were killed. I don't even know how you managed to come up with that notion based on what I said.

 

[Finder50]

I want to talk about autopsies, and the doctor who performed them for ECSO in the 1950s and 60s. Was there more than one doctor? Did a physician have to have any separate training mandated by the state govt. to perform autopsies?

Here's what I'm getting at. I'm wondering how the girls' autopsies compare with those performed on the two women and man who were killed in, I believe, 1957.

Did the same doctor perform all 5 autopsies? Who owned the West Funeral Home in 1957?

If the sheriff was present at the girls' autopsies, does anyone see a conflict of interest? Could the sheriff have been directing the physician in performing the autopsies?

Where are the morgue photos?

Justthinkin, If you are referring to the two women killed on Hwy 62/180 thirty miles east of Carlsbad this was in Lea County and I would think that the autopsies on these women were performed in Hobbs. From what I have seen I don't think there was a great deal of cooperation or communications between jurisdictions.

Pecos45 could probably give us some insight into this.

 

[Pecos45]

If the sheriff was present at the girls' autopsies, does anyone see a conflict of interest? Could the sheriff have been directing the physician in performing the autopsies?

What are you suggesting with these comments then? Why else would the sheriff, or as it turns out TWO sheriffs, have been "directing" the physician in the autopsies?

I just do NOT believe you would get much of anyone to go along with any sort of cover-up of such crimes as the murder of two little girls. Police will sometimes cover for one another on minor violations like a family disturbance issue or where one of the gang has had a bit too much to drink...so long as there is no accident or injury. But police departments are also loyal to the cause of law and order and protecting the people they serve. Any suggestion by a chief or sheriff that things involving such a crime as a double murder would be like dropping a bomb in the department. It wouldn't fly.

I was a NM police officer in 1968 and part of 1969 and you would not believe the level of our training...or lack of it to be precise. The average officer in those days had no clue how to process a serious crime scene and I had never heard of DNA. Now back up to 1961 and guess what you get? LEO's then weren't crooked......just totally untrained and hardly any place they could even get advanced training and probably no city willing to pay for them to go to it.

We cannot look at what took place in 1961 and judge or speculate about it with what we know in 2009. They were two different worlds.

 

[justthinkin]

Thanks, finder50, that's where I made my error--different county. Wouldn't have been the same doctor at all.

 

[Finder50]

Did Sunshine 1950 ever find out the location that Deputy Sillas thinks that the girls were picked up from on Church St.? I would be interested in this since I grew up in Carlsbad and I know that when I got my driver's license in 1965 Church St. was the main drag and on a Friday night there would have been one car right after another going up and down Church St. It would have been highly unlikely that the girls could have been pickup without several people seeing it.

 

[Pecos45]

Sorry, Finder. I was around then but don't know anything additional about the triple murder involving the women found in Lea County.

I will say that Lovington is the county seat of Lea County...not Hobbs. I don't know if this would determine where these womens autopsies were done or not.

My own LEO involvement came along a few years after these crimes but there was never any feeling of animosity between counties that I was aware of. From what instances I saw, everyone cooperated fully with one another.

I think much of the police rivalry is a "made for TV gimmick." Most LEO's have the attitude of all for one and one for all.

 

[Finder50]

The one observation that I have on the whole investigative process in this case is that there was too many fingers in the pie from the get go. There was the retired FBI Agent, New Mexico State Police, Carlsbad City Police, and the ECSO but there doesn't seem to have been one single agency that was coordinating the entire investigation. This is evidenced from fact that Estrada having to contact the NM State Police to get some of the evidence that they had collected. There is no telling what evidence that other agencies might have.

 

[justthinkin]

Pecos, it was my mistake in thinking all five murders took place in Eddy Co. I'm claiming a senior moment here of forgetfulness.

I was questioning whether equal time was spent in collecting evidence on all of them, but it doesn't matter since they didn't happen in the same county.

 

[Pecos45]

Don't forget Titus meddling and apparently anyone else who wanted to come out and gawk at the crime scene was welcome. One has to wonder if anyone brought out a BBque pit?

 

[Finder50]

Sorry, Finder. I was around then but don't know anything additional about the triple murder involving the women found in Lea County.

I will say that Lovington is the county seat of Lea County...not Hobbs. I don't know if this would determine where these womens autopsies were done or not.

My own LEO involvement came along a few years after these crimes but there was never any feeling of animosity between counties that I was aware of. From what instances I saw, everyone cooperated fully with one another.

I think much of the police rivalry is a "made for TV gimmick." Most LEO's have the attitude of all for one and one for all.

Sorry Pecos45, I wasn't trying to say that there animosity between counties just that they didn't have anything like CODIS in 1957 or 1961. Heck I am not sure that local agencies were able to communicate that effectively unless they actually met and discussed the cases did they?